from Dwight Krehbiel
Dear MCC administrators, board members, and other concerned persons,
As a former MCC volunteer (Teachers Abroad Program), I have been distressed to learn about the numerous cases of abusive treatment perpetrated by MCC on its own employees and volunteers. Although I did not always agree with the actions of MCC leaders during my time as a volunteer, the kinds of abuse reported in recent years (https://www.mccabusesurvivors.org/) seem utterly foreign to the organization we knew in those days. However, we experienced examples of authoritarian behavior among MCC leaders then too, which in retrospect might have been warning signs. The steadfast exclusion of LGBTQ+ persons from MCC (https://www.bmclgbt.org/2018/03/30/time-for-this-to-stop) also indicates the limitations of MCC's commitment to its own stated vision and mission (https://mcc.org/about/vision).
It is the clear inconsistency between MCC's response to survivors of abuse on the one hand, and the vision and mission that MCC claims on the other, that is so jarring to us who have thought of MCC as a leading voice for peace and justice. MCC's voice is ostensibly for all, but it is clearly not for survivors of abuse at the hands of MCC. The refusal to allow an external investigation or to make all findings of an investigation public, as well as the frequent reliance on non-disclosure agreements (NDAs -- about 20% of cases -- https://www.mccabusesurvivors.org/), indicate a cover-up rather than a willingness to be held accountable. One naturally asks, what are you trying to hide? Considering the evidence for financial mismanagement, NDAs, and complex legal maneuvering (https://www.mccabusesurvivors.org/survivors), MCC donors are in effect asking themselves, "Does MCC even measure up to the standards of secular humanitarian organizations, and why should I believe that these misdeeds are outweighed by the good works that MCC claims to do?" (https://canadianmennonite.org/readers-write-august-2024-responses-to-involuntary/). Is abuse only wrong when perpetrated by people we think are bad?
My belief is that the abuses such as those described on the MCC Abuse Survivors Together (MAST) website are wrong no matter who perpetrates them and that no amount of good works excuses such behavior. Refusal to be held to account for the abuse only worsens the harm to survivors, not to mention the lack of respect for the truth that it demonstrates. Thus, I endorse without reservation steps recommended by MAST:
A transparent, external, independent third-party investigation, the results of which are reported in full to the public
An end to the use of NDAs and a release of all MCC abuse survivors from NDAs that they have signed.
I also urge the approval by MCC boards of the external facilitator's parameters for a conversation between MCC board members and Anicka Fast and John Clarke, who as leaders of MAST have been special targets of MCC ire. This conversation is of particular importance because if we allow MCC to escape accountability for harm done to these leaders we have little reason to expect a better outcome for the scores of other survivors who have reported their abuse (and surely many more who have not).
The response to this abuse crisis is a critical test for MCC. The financial threat alone appears significant. However, a much more fundamental challenge is at stake, for surely an organization that is willing to deny and cover up behavior that is so clearly at cross purposes with their own vision and mission has adopted a perilous path. People will know, and your words that proclaim your own good deeds will ring hollow. The truth matters, and MCC is in danger of being undone by its own failure to be truthful about these abuses.
Dwight Krehbiel
Bethel College Mennonite Church
North Newton, KS 67117
P.S. I consider this a public letter; I give MAST permission to post it online.